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Luke 18:1-8, there is a Greek word worth naming, the word the widow uses when she says, avenge me of my adversary. The word adversary is antidikou, it is a legal term, it means opponent in a lawsuit, your rival in court, the one suing you or being sued by you, but that same word, antidikou...

Luke 18:1-8, a judge who does not care. A widow who will not quit, a Greek word that carries the force of a punch and a contrast, not a comparison, between the worst human imaginable and the God who hears, that is where you are. The parable is not about getting God to move, it is about staying...

Luke 18:6-8, Jesus is not teaching you that prayer is a way of pressuring God, he is teaching you that God is nothing like this judge, the widow’s persistence is not leverage over heaven, it is the shape of faith in a world where justice has not yet arrived. That reframes everything and that...

Luke 18:4-5, this is where the Greek gets sharp, that word “weary” is “hypopiaze,” it is the exact same verb used for a boxer landing a punch under his opponent’s eye. The judge is not complaining about being bothered, he is imagining his face, his public face, the one the whole town sees and he...

Luke 18:3, when Jewish society worked the way God had designed it, widows were meant to be at the front of the line, not at the back, the courtroom was supposed to bend toward the defenseless, not away from them, that was the design, but when that system broke down, widows were the first to feel...

Luke 18:1-8, hypopiazo, a Greek word meaning to strike under the eye and it is a boxing term. Hypopiazo literally means to strike someone under the eye, to give them a black eye, to land a punch on a face, it is the same word Paul reaches for in 1 Corinthians 9:27 when he says, I discipline my...

Matthew 25:14-30, the reward the master offers, deserves more attention than it usually gets, enter into the joy of your master. The key word is the Greek preposition, “eis,” into, not toward, the joy is not handed to the servant like a bonus, the servant is invited to step inside it. The joy...

Matthew 25:14-30, not talent versus no talent, not productivity versus laziness, trust versus suspicion, the first two servants looked at what the master gave them and saw an invitation, the third servant looked at the same master and saw a threat. Same master, same generosity, opposite...

Matthew 25:14-30, verses 24-25, that is the master, this servant claims to serve and look at the specific accusation, reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you did not scatter seed, the servant is saying that the master profits from labor, he did not perform, he takes the harvest...

Matthew 25:14-30, five talents earned, two talents earned, same words from the master’s mouth, the metric was not volume, it was trust, that reframes everything about the third servant. The third servant goes and digs a hole in ground and buries the talent, in the ancient world, burying...

Matthew 25:14-30, some manuscripts connect the Greek word “eutheos,” meaning “immediately” to the first servant’s action, which would mean he did not sit on it, he moved, but it is worth pausing on what trading actually involved in 1st century Palestine, because it was not safe. The economy ran...

Matthew 25:14-30, 75 pounds of silver, that is what a single talent weighed in the first, not a coin you could slip into a pocket, a mass of metal you would need both arms to carry. When Jesus sat on the Mount of Olives days before his death and told a story about a man handing that kind of...

Matthew 16:24, the same Jesus who says, deny yourself, also says in Matthew 11:28, the same Lord who calls for a cross also calls himself gentle and lowly in heart, the same Christ who confronts self-rule is the shepherd who gives life, John 10:10. So, Christian self-denial is not a war against...

Matthew 16:24, a cross did not whisper, it announced, it told everyone passing by that Rome had won and the condemned person had lost every appeal, whatever plans he had, whatever family name he carried, whatever arguments he might still have wanted to make, the road answered them all with wood...

Matthew 16:24, the word yourself, Jesus is not calling the body evil, he is not calling emotions evil, he is not calling gifts, personality, intelligence, memory, laughter, creativity or desire evil in themselves, Scripture gives no permission for contempt toward what God created. The self being...

Matthew 16:24, Peter wants the Christ, he does not want the crucified Christ, that is why Jesus’ response is so severe, get behind me, Satan, does not mean Peter has become Satan, it means Peter is functioning as an obstacle, echoing a temptation that would turn Jesus away from the path of...

Matthew 16:24, the other mistake is to make the command harmless, deny yourself becomes a motivational phrase for self-discipline, say no to a luxury, skip dessert, spend less, be a little nicer, make a few religious improvements while keeping the basic ownership of your life untouched. That is...

Matthew 16:24, the Greek verb behind deny, comes from “aparnesastho,” a word used for denying, disowning or renouncing, the meaning many Christians miss is this, Jesus is not attacking human dignity, he is calling for a decisive refusal to let the self remain the ruling authority. The verse is...

Matthew 15:24, I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel. You cannot avoid this, it is too important, because it is not just a test script line that Jesus is running through before revealing his real position, it is, or at least it appears to be, a genuine statement about the scope of his...

Matthew 15:21-28, consider the disciples in this story, they are often treated as secondary characters, bystanders who wanted her dismissed and got shown up, but consider their reaction carefully, something more interesting is happening. These are men who have been with Jesus for a substantial...